Heartbeats pt 2 of 2
by PinkSandals
Summary: Heartbeats don't necessarily mean you're alive...
1. The train station

Enclosed in its cold metal partitions and icy stone tiles, she leaned against the bathroom wall, crying. She'd probably been crying for a long time. Her train ticket was in her hand, crumpled and bloody. Her clothes and hair were damp from the downpour outside. She shivered. Trains and commuters whirred by outside, engulfed in their own lives and almost in a traveling coma. That was the opposite of her problem. She was engulfed in so many other lives it had become overwhelming. Her life before she found out, her life of lies, her life during the investigation, and the many lives she had to choose from to live after it was all over. She really didn't want to live anymore. Forced into choosing her fate when so far, fate had chosen nothing but force for her. Her bag of belongings lay tangled beside her. Finally moving, she shifted and threw her train ticket into the toilet, as it had expired. She started crying again. Her other hand was wrapped tightly around her wrist. She began to feel woozy. It had been an hour already. She removed her hand to reveal a suicidal slash across her right wrist. Her tears fell to the ground, mingling with the blood droplets on the tiles. What she wanted, nobody knew. Why she skipped her train, not even she knew. Maybe fate did.

Maybe fate knew.

_The sleeping child opened her eyes to the sound of the silent witness prodding her with it's calm harmony. Her parents only played classical music after her bedtime. They only turned it up this loud when they were fighting. She heard glass break and her mother scream. Rolling over, she tried to tune it out by pulling her covers up high over her ears._

_She didn't want to wake up. Not again. She was tired. And the sun wasn't up shining in through her window yet. But her sister insisted. And the music had stopped. She wrapped her little sister in her favourite woolly sweater and escorted her out to the backyard. They sat there a long time. Like before. Like the many times before. A light flickered on in the Weiss residence across the field. A minute later it died into the monotonous night and camouflaged into the blue that curtained the environs. The little girl snuggled up to her sister, still half asleep. Still half asleep. Her sister kept a keen watch over the sounds inside. She was a lot older than the sleeping child. She was a lot wiser. But they were equally clever. She ran her fingers through her little sister's hair as she slept. The yelling didn't stop. The older sister had thought about running away. She thought about it. Maybe to their neighbour's house. The Weiss' would understand. She wanted to protect the little one._

_The yelling continued. _

_She took her sister down underneath the porch, it was warmer there. And against the house, the heat was pocketed into a slightly warmer cloud than the great outdoors. She sat her sister there, and crept back inside to fetch a blanket. _

_Another glass shattered._

_That's when the little one woke up. She'd woken to a strange sound she'd never before heard. One that would stay with her forever. An unforgiving spirit._

_It was the sound of her older sister, her wise and angelic sister, crying. She stayed in that spot under the porch, traumatized. The yelling had finally stopped. She waited fervently for the yelling to start again. She needed reassurance her family was still alive. She stayed in that spot, that spot under the porch. Where nobody found her. Nobody found her there. Not the men in scrubs who came in the loud, sparkling trucks. Not the doctors, not the young cop who sat twenty feet from her hiding spot, puking his guts out. Nobody knew where she was. In fact, nobody knew she even was. Not a single soul except her older sister. But she didn't speak for a month and a half after that. And fate knew._

_Oh yes, fate definitely knew._

As that last image faded from her mind, she woke up. Opening her eyes like slits to just see where she was, she realised she wasn't dead. Maybe dying. But not dead. She closed her eyes again. The lights hurt them. She pretended to still be sleeping. Then somebody grabbed her hand. And held it, gently. The somebody carefully turned over her wrist to observe the injury. The hand that held her hand felt sad. She still didn't want to open her eyes. She wasn't dead. Her soul sang joyfully. But her mind fumed. She wanted to die. She wanted to die painfully. Hopefully she was dying. Her heartbeats beeped electronically as they were recorded by the monitor. Then another somebody joined the sad someone who held her hand. It sounded underwater. She couldn't hear what they were saying. She couldn't distinguish words. But she heard the sorrow in their voices. Then whomever was holding her hand let go, and left. The new person sat beside her in the place of the former occupant. The new person was probably another social worker. She had no family. Well, not really.

She finally opened her eyes. It was him, him from before. Oh it killed her to remember his name. Could she remember her own name? She didn't know what she didn't know. But he was one of them. From the investigation. He wasn't looking at her, so he didn't know she was awake. He was looking through a file with a San Francisco PD logo on the front. Crap! Was she in 'Cisco? Why? She looked at the monitor. Her blood pressure was lower than usual. Well, she thought, as usual as it could get for a hemophiliac. But why was she in California? Oh, right. She took the train. Did she? No, she took one train and was supposed to take two. She sighed. He looked up and saw she was awake. He looked surprised. She looked at him, trying to remember who he was. He rolled the chair over to beside her bed, and grabbed her hand. Why is it people liked to hold her hand? What was she? Dying? Then she remembered. She probably was. Which was fine. Whatever. She just realised he was saying something. She couldn't really hear him. He was underwater. He looked confused.

"Rachel! Can… can you hear me?" He asked. Rachel? She wondered. Who?… Oh… her… but, oh. Whatever. But oh yeah! She could hear him. She nodded slightly. He looked excited. He took his cell phone and dialed somebody. He still held her hand. Her dying hand. She still couldn't remember him.

"Yeah, Sara… she's awake!" He exclaimed.

Why was she in San Francisco?


	2. What time is it?

Disclaimer: Sorry I forgot one in the first chapter so here goes: I DON'T OWN CSI! GAH!

* * *

Yeah, why the HELL was she in San Francisco? And why was she on the train? No, she was on one train but she was supposed to take two. It killed her to remember where she was going. There were two people in her room now. She tried to concentrate on remembering. She grew more and more terrified when all she could remember was the dream she'd just woken up from. But the guy from before, she knew him. She didn't know who he was or why she knew him but his face almost rekindled the fire of memory that was now extinguished. How could she not remember anything? And how on earth did she get that gruesome gash on her wrist? Something to do with trains. Was she attacked at the station? She was confused. The two people were talking to her. One was the mystery man and the other was a woman. They were probably both around thirty or thirty-five. She couldn't remember who they were. Maybe she'd never even seen them before and her mind was dying. These two people were talking to each other, now. It sounded like her head was inside a balloon and all the outside sound avoided her head and just went around it, so it sounded distant.

* * *

Sara and Warrick gave up on trying to talk to her, so they were both observing Rachel's test results. A nurse was coming in, in about a half hour to see how she was doing and to evaluate her health and to perform a psychiatric exam. Warrick left. Sara paced for a second, then looked at Rachel. Her face was hidden by tubes. Actually a big vacuum-cleaner type tube and an oxygen tube. On one hand, an IV was secured, and on the other, a little clip-like thing on her index finger recorded her dawdling pulse. Sara looked in calm anguish at Rachel's eyes. They were shut but she was awake. She was either dreaming or thinking. Sara sat at the foot of the bed.

* * *

The woman sat at the foot of her bed. She opened her eyes to see why her bed was moving, and she was there. Sitting. The woman looked at her, and said something. She couldn't hear! She squinted in the bright lights. She moved her hand to shield them but couldn't and realised her hand was attached to an IV. So she just closed her eyes. The woman got off her bed, then a moment later sat down again. She was saying something. The woman's words were still indistinguishable. Wait… she was gradually regaining her hearing. No, nope… maybe not. For a second the bubble around her head shrunk, like it was about to pop, but it recovered to its previous useless bubble. Suddenly a terrible freakishly high-pitched squeal erupted from the center of her head and it lasted a couple seconds and later, like an eardrum popping, her entire head cleared. She opened her eyes in surprise. The lights were off. The woman had turned off the lights. That man was gone now. She thought that maybe since the woman turned off the lights, she wanted to talk. She didn't feel like talking. Her voice felt really far away. Really deep down inside her somewhere and perhaps asleep. Also, her lips were dried shut. She wasn't sure how long she had been in this bed, but her mouth was sore from not moving in a while.

Basically talking would take a whole lot of effort.

It took a moment for her eyes to feel awake and lethargy seemed to have taken over her body, and still lingered. But the woman only watched. Come on! Talk! I can hear now, she thought. She tried to send this message telepathically, knowing it wouldn't work. The woman was holding something.

* * *

Sara was watching Rachel come to. She opened her eyes, then closed them again, tired from the minor effort. She opened them again, this time longer. She had turned off the lights, which were blindingly fluorescent, so she could maybe talk to her. Rachel had been in a coma for about two and a half days. She was groggy. Sara got up and went over to the side of the bed and sat on the swivel chair. She held Rachel's heartbeat hand, massaging it gently. It was yellow from the lack of blood circulation. Rachel closed her eyes again momentarily.

"Rachel…" Sara said, calling the girl out of wherever she was. Her blue eyes searched Sara for clues of who she was. This broke her heart, and Sara wondered if Rachel remembered anything. She'd lost a pint and a half of blood, and for a hemophiliac, that was pretty deadly. It was a miracle she wasn't a vegetable.

* * *

She called her Rachel. That was her name, right? Yeah, it was. She remembered that. She wasn't sure who she was though. She vaguely remembered this woman. Was she a social worker? There was something to do with a room and a table, wasn't there? Someone's office? It might've been hers. Rachel wasn't sure. Suddenly millions of cold needles pricked her and she shivered momentarily.

"Rachel? Can you tell me what day it is?" the woman asked. Aha! This was some kind of getting-out-of-a-coma test. But… what day was it? The date on her ticket said August something. She looked at the clock above the door. It was one of those treacherous non-ticking clocks with second-hands that glided. It said 4:37. Rachel looked at the woman, who had an expression of great sorrow on her face. She looked at her, trying to cheer her up wordlessly. She opened her mouth for the first time in forever it seemed.

* * *

"It's 4: 37," Rachel replied, her voice raspy and coarse. The woman turned, maybe looking for the man, seeing if he'd returned. He hadn't. She turned back to Rachel, she was crying. Now she wanted to cry. Thinking about crying made her head hurt.

A nurse walked in.


	3. Gayle's Drawer

It seemed as though time had raced around unspecifically and just stopped. However it was, it happened too quickly. Sara found herself in a cold metal room, being escorted by an oldish woman to a drawer. When the woman turned, Sara noted her nametag said 'Gayle'. Sara took a deep breath. She didn't know why. Gayle opened the door, and pulled out the slab. There was a body underneath the white sheet. Inside, Sara was surprised and sad. Outside, she felt slow and heavy. Gayle looked at Sara, mouthed something incoherent, and Sara nodded violently. She was starting to cry, like her soul knew what was happening, but her mind was completely oblivious. Gayle gently removed the sheet. Rachel was dead. Sara's heart fell and started beating hard somewhere in her stomach. She broke down to a whole new level of panic.

_The poor little thing, she's just gone. She didn't even have a chance. And now she's gone and there's nothing you can do because it was all your fault._

Sara's soul was chattering away accusingly. Her logic was telling it to shut it. Her tears blinded her, and she tried to navigate her way out of the hospital, but found herself in someone's arms. She didn't care who it was. She hugged them back.


	4. Try to remember the future

* * *

Rachel knew something went wrong. She was beginning to feel numb. Like something was sucking all her blood out of her. She was suffocating. It felt like she was suffocating in her mind, not so much lacking air. She heard yelling. Or perhaps was it crying? No. Neither? 

She had to force her eyes open. They were crusted shut from sleep. The bright light hurt. She had something to say to someone that was very important, but had no idea what. Her eyes came into focus.

Major Confusion.

Rachel found herself at a playground, somewhere. She was sitting on a swing, swinging gently. It seemed to be the middle of the day, but there was nobody in sight. Perhaps she was in heaven? She really had to stop kidding herself. She wasn't sure if she was dead. She felt dead. Whatever that felt like. From the swing set Rachel could only see a couple trees. She was in the middle of a field. No houses, no towns, cars, people. Nobody.

Oh, but maybe somebody. Rachel squinted. In the distance there was somebody. Or, no two people. They were hugging. She tried to get off the swing, but she couldn't find the ground. She looked down.

There was no ground.

Rachel just waited for them to see her. They didn't seem to be noticing her.

"Hey!" Rachel screamed. They were pretty far away, she wasn't sure they'd hear her. Oh, one of them heard her. She was looking around. Rachel found this all quite strange. How can they not see a playground in the middle of a field? "HEY!" She screamed again. It seemed like only one of the two people was hearing her. The other seemed to be confused and…… sad? But the one was approaching the playground, still not seeing it. Rachel looked around. She jumped in surprise. She was now sitting on a tire swing, hanging from a tree. This was beyond weird. The person was now getting pretty close to the tree where Rachel sat. She was about a city-block length away. Rachel squinted. It was Sara. Her sister? She thought about this for a second. Then she remembered what the important thing was she had to say. She jumped off the swing, there was ground this time, and ran over to her. "Sara!" Rachel screeched. Sara turned, and finally saw her. She looked elatedly happy to see her.

"Rachel?" She whispered in disbelief. Rachel had no desire for small talk or any negotiating with her sister.

"I have to tell you something," Rachel said pointedly. Only, Rachelfelt detachedfrom what she was saying. Like someone else had crept inside her with a message for her sister and had avoided noting theirexistence.Sara seemed intoxicated by the presence of her sister. Rachel ignored her. "Are you listening!" She said impatiently.

"I thought you…. Rachel? What happened? I thought you were dead…." Sara said. Whoever the other person was, was gone now, Rachel noticed. She rolled her eyes at her sister's mindless statement.

"I AM dead." Rachel said sharply. She hadn't realized that she was dead until then. Well, her mouth was doing the talking, not her mind, or... whoever the mystery person inside her was. Well, she told herself, that was unfortunate and decided to see what she had to say, and sat back to listen.She stepped up closer to Sara. "I need to tell you something, and you have to promise me you'll remember. You have to promise." Rachel said. Sara was crying. Rachel waited. Seeing Sara nod in agreement before wiping her eyes, Rachel continued. "You have to stop this all before it happens." Rachel said. "You know how my case plays out already. You know what happened. When we return to the future, only you will know all that because it's your dream, not mine. In fact... I don't know you yet." She said, having no idea where the instructions were coming from, or why they were important, or what they even meant. She just knew she had to tell Sara.

* * *

Sara looked around probablly for a neon sign translating whatever her sister said. "Hey!" She heard Rachel shout. The girl was being awfully ornery. Sara turned to see Rachel right in front of her. She stepped back a little. Her sister seemed transformed and her demeanor was a complete turnaround. If it was some sort of vision or dream she was having right now, maybe it skewed Rachel's personality. Perhaps, too, that meant she was still alive. Sara remembered and was somehow understanding what she had just been told. _When we return to the future, only you will know all that because it's your dream, not mine. In fact... I don't know you yet. _Suddenly succumbing to her momentary comprehension, Sara decided to change the subject.

"Why didn't you take the second train, Rach?" Sara asked calmly. Rachel seemed to let some of her guard down. The question was more personal than these creepy instructions, and caused Rachel to climb out a bit. Realizing this, Rachel immediately rebuilt her wall. She turned and headed to the tire swing. Sara tried to grab her sister's shoulder but found herself groping madly at nothing but air. Scandalized, Rachel turned, and glared at her sister with an outraged expression. Ready to retort, Rachel replied;

"Why did you leave me under the porch?"

"I asked you first, Rachel. Tell me why you skipped your second train!" Sara yelled with a false anger that was meant to intimidate Rachel to no avail. Rachel stared at Sara for a moment before continuing her ghostly journey to the tire swing. "Rachel!" Sara screamed through tears of anger. "You did this to yourself you know. You killed yourself. You're a coward. Suicide is cowardly. I thought you were smarter than that, Rachel. No. No, I knew you were smarter than that. And talking to you now is very, very frustrating because you're dead and I don't know where I am or how to get out of here!" She cried. Rachel had stopped while listening to the rant.

"You're in a dream." Rachel said, without turning around. "If I tell you why, you'll know the whole story.There'll beno reason to help me, because, by thenit will be too late." Rachel said slowly, turning to face Sara. "As for how to get out of here, you'll have to wake up." Rachel said, walking back towards her sister, holding something. Sara saw that it was a music box. Rachel handed it to her. Sara held it for a second before reacting. "Vienna Blood was the song that was playing. You know. When he died." Rachel said, looking down at the lone music box in Sara's palm. She looked at her sister for perhaps the first time in the eyes.Then, she turnedand started running away into the never ending distance. Sara looked back at the music box, only to see it had turned into a pool of blood, and was dripping from her hand.


	5. Mind Game

An unpleasant sound was reverberating somewhere in between Sara's dream and waking up. It got louder.

"Miss Sidle! Miss Sidle!"

Sara's head was really hurting. It felt compressed.

"Miss Sidle!" The clanging became persistent and even louder. Sara opened her eyes.

Bricks. Metal. Cold.

Where was she? Oh, and fuck! Her head was absolutely throbbing. Her brain was squeezing tears out of her eyes. Her lower arm was in a splint. She was sleeping in a cold lump on a strange bed. She looked around in a quick scan, uncertain as to where she was. She was in a cell, she soon realized.

"MISS SIDLE!"

"Sweet Jesus WHAT?" Sara shouted. Her eyes took a moment to focus. Outside the door was a woman who looked of authority and impatient, quite possibly not because of Sara's slow reaction.

"You have a visitor, Miss Sidle. Please Follow me," the woman said. She had big hair and severe features. She unlocked the door, and led Sara down the hallway to a door. This door required a swipe-card to enter and had a tiny window in the top middle. A green light beeped professionally, and they entered this room.

It was an interrogation room, with a chair, a table, and a chair that were peculiarly far away from each other. With great sadness and confusion Sara realized it was probably for the protection of not her, but the visitor. She didn't want to think she was in some sort of nut-house, but the thought didn't surprise her, and that was to her a slight bit ……weird….. she was escorted to the rickety, metal chair.

Her visitor entered.


	6. Now and Then

A/N: I edited chapter 4, as per new idea.

* * *

Grissom and Catherine entered the room, and sat down in an orderly fashion, like they were conditioned to the way things worked. Fluorescent lights buzzed, and Sara felt like it was cutting her head in half and performing an unnecessary and painful surgery. Grissom and Catherine looked at her, and it took a moment for Sara to realise exactly who they were. If the whole Rachel thing was a dream… or a vision, or whatever, did they know about her? Also, was this part of the vision, or was she finally awake?

"Is this… _now_?" Sara asked, trying to ask something crazy while sounding completely sane. Her statement made Catherine look at Grissom in a silent _'what in hell?' _

"It's now." Grissom said, completely on the ball of her conversation. "Before you ask…" Grissom said, "the answer is no. Sorry…" Sara didn't know what he thought she would ask. Grissom didn't seem surprised at her confusion. This was confusing to a further extent.

"Alright, thanks…" Sara said, trying not to sound completely oblivious. Catherine kept on looking at Grissom for justification of something they had probably discussed privately, and she wasn't trying to run the show, which told Sara they knew about something pretty serious she probably was not aware of.

"What I was wondering about, actually…" Sara said, breaking the silence, "is if any cases came in about an abduction…? Uh…." She searched for ways to vaguely explain the situation.

"Nothing yet, " Grissom said really slowly, like he was trying to get a five-year-old to understand it wasn't Christmas yet. Sara became annoyed with his act.

"…. A girl, she's I think about 16, perhaps 17? She's got blue eyes… she was wearing a school uniform. Are you _completely_ sure?" Sara asked, trying to cram as much information as she could in, before Grissom stopped her and told her she was being ridiculous.

"And why am I even here? That is what I really, _really_ don't understand!" Sara said, suddenly very scared. Catherine looked just as scared, and Grissom was flipping through notes on his clipboard. He found the page he was looking for.

"Rachel Weiss. About 5 feet 7 inches. Abducted by her father. Last seen at a gas station in a red truck." Grissom read off the page. He looked up, and took enormous satisfaction from Sara's further confused stare.

"You SAID there was nothing!" Sara said angrily. She didn't like what this conversation was turning into. Grissom stopped smiling.

"There isn't anything yet, Sara… this is all you told me." Grissom said, showing her a bunch of scribbled notes. "It's all you told me last time I came, don't you remember?" He took back the clipboard and looked at Sara, waiting for a reply. She nervously fiddled her hands.

"I don't…" Sara said. She paused. Nobody really said anything. "How long have I been here?"


End file.
